“Sorry Spike, I didn't think you'd be right next to our teleport spot.” I give the drake a few pats on the back.

“Yeah totally, it's okay. I get it. Honestly I should be used to it from how much Twi teleports around. I guess I just let my guard down since I left Canterlot and started living here alone.”

“You can make that past tense now, Spike! Princess Celestia is letting me move back here to Ponyville! Oh I can't wait to go say hi to the girls! Oh no…I didn't bring them anything back from Canterlot! Ignis we have to go back.” Twilight is back for five minutes and is already having a breakdown over a non-existent problem.

“We're not going back to Canterlot, Twilight. You didn't bring them anything back and they didn't visit you a single time despite being told the travel and lodging expenses would be covered. I think we can call it even.”

“That is true… I'm sure they were just busy, though.”

“You were busy too. Don't trivialize your own problems. Did you have anything you wanted to take care of today? It's still pretty early, not even noon yet.” Twilight seems to think for a few moments before smiling.

“Let me spend some time getting settled in and then I’ll go round up the girls, Pinkie will definitely want to throw a “Welcome back to Ponyville after overcoming your trauma and anxiety about shapeshifting bug ponies that killed you, party.””

Is she serious? “Are you sure Pinkie is….sane?”

The unicorn just gives me another smile and with a startling level of confidence replies with a resounding, “Nope! She has definitely lost her mind!”

What the fuck kind of week did Luna just unleash on me?

Can’t believe Nightmare went to sleep and left me to wander around with these nutcases alone. I’ve had to stop myself from making off-hand remarks at least 50 times since Twilight went and gathered up her friends. Now all six of them are here at the library catching up on old times.

“I just can’t believe your brother is getting married to a Princess!~ Oh it’s like a fairytale romance, the captain of the guard and his forbidden love, his Princess! Ahhh I can’t even imagine it!” Rarity is gushing about the engagement between Shining and Cadence and I just roll my eyes. This time I’m unable to resist the urge to chime in.

“Ahem.” I clear my throat and Rarity glances my way. I just arch my eyebrow and after replaying her words in her mind it registers. “Oh! Wait, it's the same for you and Princess Luna! Gah I wish I could find my Prince Charming as well!”

“It’s overrated. Lots of drama and too many eyes on you.” There’s a thick silence that hands in the air, as my tone reeks of melancholy. “Well…I suppose it’s worth it.” I find myself softly smiling. “Definitely worth it.”

They go back to whatever they’re talking about and my mind wanders. I can’t believe they haven’t even apologized for what they did to Twilight before she went to Canterlot. I mean I know they all talked and hashed things out with Celestia, but still…there’s no it’s all water under the bridge just like that. Right?

Twilight says bye to her friends as they file out of the library, and I decide to ask her about it. “Hey Twilight. I was wondering…did you talk to your friends while you were in Canterlot?”

“Hm? Oh…uhm, Applejack and Fluttershy did send a couple of letters, but that’s about it I guess.”

“Okay I thought so.”

She looks confused, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, it just seems weird to me that you have seemingly forgiven them for collectively laughing off your problem and watching from the sidelines as you spiraled out of control. I thought maybe they talked to you and apologized and made it up to you while you were in Canterlot.”

Now the unicorn seems conflicted. She’s nervously dragging a hoof back and forth while averting her gaze. “I guess I’ve forgiven them. Princess Celestia explained to me how unbelievable it seemed to them that I had actually died and been revived due to how impossible revival magic was considered to be. So, um, when I think about it logically from their point of views…of course I sounded crazy. “A bunch of shapeshifting bug ponies impersonated my brother and paralyzed me with venom, and then they impaled me with spears until I died. So, now I think everypony I meet is a potential changeling and I can’t cope with it. Please girls, help me.” I mean…” She swallows nervously. “Th-that sounds crazy right? It's understandable they wouldn’t believe me, right? They’re the only friends I have Ignis…”

Ah she’s definitely been having this internal conflict the entire time she was in Canterlot. This is probably why she can’t use her element. “I get it. I’ve been there. It’s hard to keep being friends with someone you resent. It’s not nearly as hard as being alone though, right?”

“If you had asked me that just a few months ago I’d call you crazy. But now, I can’t imagine my life as a recluse in the library, content being alone. Plus, I really don’t want to stop being friends with them. They’ve done a lot for me and I think one mistake shouldn’t override all of that. But, I just can’t help it, I feel so frustrated when I think back to that day.”

Sigh. “Come here, nerd.” She hops up onto the couch, still looking conflicted and downtrodden. “There’s no right or wrong answer here, Twilight. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t forgive them, I was just confused on why you had. Or at least it seemed like you had. Personally I think they still should’ve helped you calm down and comforted you even if they didn’t believe what you were saying. But, you know them way better than I do. If you think this isn’t something worth ending your friendship over, then you just need to actually forgive them.”

“But how? I can’t control how I feel.”

“Stop trying to excuse what they did. Don’t hide it behind whatever loops you’re jumping through in your head to justify it. Acknowledge that they messed up, and that they hurt you. Acknowledge how bad they felt when we finally got through to them. Acknowledge that you want to overlook this mistake, and then just let it go.”

It’s silent in the library, but it’s not a tense silence or an awkward silence. I can tell she’s just thinking, and I’ll wait.

“You’re right. I think I was just so hung up on the excuse Princess Celestia used, I kept arguing back and forth in my head if that was really a good enough reason. But, you’re right. There’s alot of things they could’ve done better, but they just dropped the ball, and….I think that’s okay.”

I can’t resist the urge to ruffle her mane, so I reach out and do just that. “That’s your problem girl, you’re in your own head and you overthink everything. How often do you find yourself thinking, “Well that can’t be right, it’s too simple.””

“H-hey, stop! My mane! Ugh. I guess I do think that a lot, but sometimes it’s helped! How do I know when it really is too simple?”

“Eh, you just gotta lower your confidence threshold. I’m willing you bet you only accept an answer when you’re at least 90 to 95% confident in that answer.”

“95.”

“Yeah just get more comfortable accepting things even if you’re only 80 or even 70% confident. I think if you do that, you’ll end up realizing that sometimes you did miss something, or overlook it, and that simple answer is wrong. But don’t triple and quadruple check every single thing every time you have to make a decision, ya know? If you’re anything like me when I was young you’ll end up sending yourself down pointless rabbit holes. Anyways, we’re off topic now. Did that help? Do you forgive your friends?”

“Not yet. I want to talk to them one more time. I can’t just admit that it’s an overlookable honest mistake until I talk to them individually and hear exactly what their thought process was. There’s no way all five of them have the same excuse the Princess gave me.”

“Atta girl, that’s a good answer. You headin to bed soon?”

As soon as I mention bed she lets out an involuntary yawn. “Soon, but first I want to know about that potential solution you had to my changeling paranoia.”

Oh, I did mention that. I kinda forgot. “Right. There’s just one small issue with it though, and I’m not sure if you’re able to overcome that.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you have to, uh, pray to me, sometimes. It can just be something as simple as “Ignis, thank you for the blessings and power you give to me that allow me to keep my peace of mind.” It just has to be some form of appreciation or devotion, I think.” Her face instantly scrunches up when I mention the word “pray.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I have the ability to bestow a blessing of power onto any creature. That blessing gives them access to all kinds of spells and abilities, but not your spells, my spells. Like my instant healing magic. If I were to give you this blessing you’d be able to use a spell called Detect Poison and DIsease. I don’t remember if I explained last time I walked around with you as a changeling detector, but that spell will constantly scan a radius of 30ft around your body. It’ll alert you of the location of any poisons, poisonous or venomous creatures, and magical contagions. You can even tell what kind of poison it is. So you basically use this spell whenever you wanna go out, or whenever you have a suspicion about someone and if they’re a normal pony they shouldn’t-”

“They won’t make the spell react! Oh that’s such a good detection method, what’s your false positive and false negative percentage? Are there any conditions that make it ineffective? What if a changeling were to empty all of its venom before entering the radius?”

Woah. “Alright, welcome back to your normal self, Twilight. There is no false positive rate. If it says something or someone is poisonous or venomous then they are. The only times I’ve had problems with it is if the pony you’re suspicious of is a paralyzed pony that is claiming to have been poisoned by the changelings. Even if they are a legitimate pony…”

“They’ll still react because the venom is in their system. I get it. In an active battle that seems like a pretty common scenario though, do you have a backup method?”

“Yeah but you can’t do it, even with my blessing. I can instantly tell if someone speaks a lie. The only exception is Gods that have a higher Divine Rank than me, like Chrysalis when she tricked me back then. So, I just straight up ask a pony if they’re a changeling and use my lie detector to pick them out. Also, I have no clue if it’ll detect a changeling that has emptied their venom glands. What do you think about becoming my follower? That requirement I gave you is the only obligation, and if it were up to me you wouldn’t even have to do that. But, there’s arbitrary conditions that have to be met or the system will forcibly strip you of the blessing.”

“I think it sounds like a deal that’s too good to be true, but I don’t know why you’d lie about this. So, I guess I can try.”

System, add Twilight Sparkle to the whitelist of creatures that can bypass my prayer filters. That list is only five ponies long right now, but maybe I should relax on the filters altogether. I’ll have a lot of down time during the day this week.

Suddenly I hear Twilight's voice and she says basically the same thing I told her to say except instead of thanking me for the blessing, she asks for the blessing. Then she randomly said a number afterwards… “Why 27?”

“You can really hear when ponies do that?! I thought it was just some hooey! Wait, how do I know you’re not just reading my mind….” She’s a scientific mare alright, always wanting to rule out the possibilities.

“Your first lesson in not overthinking things is to just take my word for it.” I give her a bit of a smirk. “Maybe this will help convince you as well.”

My aura explodes against my own will, surprising me and Twilight as I place my hand on her head.

You would try to convert the one you know I’ve chosen as one of my future ascended? Ah, so that’s why. My Divinity is protecting me from the mean scary lady that apparently wants Harmony.

Relax, would you? I don’t wanna convert her, just let my blessing coexist with yours. I’m helping her learn to detect poison so she can find some comfort and hopefully overcome this trauma she’s suffered. Surely you see that, no? I try to reason with her with a pretty casual tone. I don’t think she’s angry, she doesn’t sound angry anyways. Honestly her tone sounded….curious?

Fine. What is actually the deal with this lady? I swear to God she’s more bipolar than a magnet. Wait, does that comparison work? Bah who cares.

“Wait…Twilight would you rather have the blessing of Hope or Fire. I could give you Chaos but I kinda refuse to even touch that one, and I think uh….someone would be really mad if I gave you that one.”

“Does it matter? Is there a tangible difference between the two?”

“Yes and no. Either way you’ll still gain access to the Detect Poison spell, but the Fire Domain has an entirely different selection of Domain specific spells and abilities.”

She seems to think about it for a few seconds before looking back up at me. “I’ll take Fire. It seems like a more tangible thing than Hope.”

“Alright then. Twilight Sparkle, when I bless my Clerics of Hope I tell them to live as beacons. Always living and moving forward as guiding lights to everyone around them in the darkness. But you. You’ll serve as a different beacon. You’ll embody all the elements of fire. Fire hurts, but it also cauterizes, and cooks. It can rage like an inferno devouring everything in its path, or…..it can be what allows a little filly to read in the dark. No matter what though, Fire is passionate and it is temporary. It burns knowing it could be extinguished at any moment, and yet it burns. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“To appreciate everyday because it could be my last?” I nod and motion for her to continue. “To not fear my own power because although it is dangerous and could hurt somepony it’s invaluable in the ways it can also help and save somepony?”

“Yeah pretty much. Also when you get mad your mane might catch on fire, but I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“It already does that. My tail too, actually.”

“What?” I owlishly blink at the unicorn. “Huh. Wonder if it’s a Celestia thing? Anyways yeah, I’d say you already embody fire, so you’ll probably be fine. Just live everyday like it’s your last, and remember that even the smallest ember can reignite a blaze.”

There’s a faint red aura that envelopes my hand before moving and enshrouding Twilight. Within a second or so it fades away. “Congrats, you’re a Cleric. Ta-da~.”

Her eyes go a bit unfocused for a second before she suddenly mutters an incantation and a bright red orb swirls into existence in front of her and slams into the wall of the library. I just glance at her and raise an eyebrow. “Guiding Bolt?”

She gives a sheepish smile. “Y-yeah….I was trying to figure out how to use the spells and then when I focused on one and wanted to cast it…it just did it.”

“Yup. It’s a little fucky sometimes, but it gets the job done. It’s normally a lot more instinctual and fundamental, but I wonder if having an in-depth understanding of a different system of magic has made it a bit more abstract for you? All the changelings and thestrals I blessed pretty instantly understood everything. Also fair warning, the leveled spells, you can only cast around eight or nine of them per day. Maybe more if you’re a higher level, but I don’t really have a good way to figure out someones level unless they’re in my party and I can’t invite mortals to my party. What’s the highest level spell you can cast?”

She thinks for a bit. “Fifth level…I think?”

“Oh wow you’re better than Elytra. Not bad. That means you’re either level nine or ten. Just to give you a frame of reference, before I ascended I was level twelve I think? Anyways, don’t bother learning spells that let you revive ponies, Harmony won’t let you. Other than that I won’t keep you up any longer, get some good rest.”

The unicorn yawns again. “Thanks, goodnight Ignis. Goodnight Nightmare.”

Turning to my right I find that Nightmare did, in fact, wake up and come down here at some point. She smirks at me before asking, “You know you can be quite poetic sometimes. You come up with all that fire stuff on the spot?”

“Kinda. I don’t know I definitely heard some of it from some other form of media, but I can’t really remember it at all. For the purposes of Equestria, though, yeah I totally came up with all of that on the spot.” I kick my feet up and take a more confident posture.

“Careful Ignis, your ego is inflating again.” Ah, that playful tone on that evil voice is like the cool side of the pillow to me.

“You wanna see an inflated ego? Just wait till I start walking around calling everyone a mongrel. The King of Heroes was the definition of a fucking inflated ego. Well, actually, he really was something else so can I call it inflated? Ah it got him killed once, so it’s probably a bit inflated.” Nightmare looks confused at what the hell I’m talking about.

“It’s a character from my human world called Gilgamesh. He’d say shit like “Rejoice mongrel, I allow you to bask in my presence.” and other nonsense.”

“Ew. Yes, never turn into that please.” I give her a side eye. Does she not realize some of her tsundere shit treads awfully close into that territory, even if she doesn’t mean it? “Anyways, do you have any plans for tonight or are you going to actually get some rest?”

“I don’t need sleep, my brain just doesn’t realize that yet. I need to keep staying up for longer and longer periods of time until it realizes it’s not actually getting tired. But, yes I have plans. I’ll be teleporting to Canterlot to train the guards in around 15 minutes, and then I’ve got some training of my own to do. While I’m doing my own training I’ll probably help Elytra out telepathically. You’re more than welcome to join in on any of that though. Actually I think you’d be a perfect test for them to see what they’ve learned. I doubt they can beat you, but it’s easier for me to evaluate them if I’m not actively fighting them.”

“Ah, I….I wouldn’t mind observing, but I don’t think I should participate.” Right. She just got back from probably being tortured, fighting a bunch of night guards is the last thing she wants to do. Idiot. “I appreciate you asking though. Don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s actually nice that you’re not changing how you treat me.”

Yeah, but I was doing that intentionally. Even I wouldn’t have asked that if I was properly thinking. That’s obviously too far of a step for her right now. “Right. Well, I guess we should probably head over there, huh?”

With one quick teleport we are back at the trainina area behind the castle.

“Alright you guys were doing pretty good last time I ended up getting a little serious at the end, but still pretty much all the handicaps on. You got a different strategy this time?” This whole time I’ve been mostly making sure I only use my agility and my D&D Spells. I made sure to even mention the Silence spell when I was explaining to the new clerics what they could do. I mentioned that it’s not useful against most spellcasters because they don’t need to speak, but against me it would be strong. If I’m only using my natural agility and my spells and they silence me…they just have to catch me at that point. Hopefully they figure that out soon, or at least come up with some other way to win.

…

They got me. They finally used the Silence spell and then cut off my escape routes before barraging me with a ton of attacks. I didn’t use my makeshift shield spell using telekinesis this time cause I just needed to test it back then, and it kinda goes against what I was trying to teach them here.

“Good job, all of you. I was wondering how long you all would take to figure out that you’re supposed to use Silence on me. Now we get to step it up a notch, so which handicap do you want me to stop using? The version of me that you fought was essentially me about a week before Discord showed up, but with no bladesong. I can either start using Equestrian spells, start using bladesong, start using my Divinity, or start using Body Reinforcement magic. I use my Divinity to cast Equestrian spells, but what I mean is stuff like my Aura, my at-will teleportation, all kinds of goodies. What do you think Captain? What are they ready for?”

Elytra seems to think for a moment. “Would it be the bladesong you used at the hive, or the strong one where you make a mana domain around yourself?”

“The one at the hive to start with.”

“Let ‘em have it.” There’s a few groans and complaints from the collection of guards.

“You guys are lucky, she picked the easiest of the three for you to deal with. In my opinion anyways.” Some of them don’t seem to believe me.

“What are you all complaining for? If it’s weaker than the bladesong we’re all used to seeing then it can’t be that strong right?” One of the thestrals asks.

I answer before anyone or Elytra can. “You’re kinda right. It’s not affected by Silence though, so you’ll need to find a different weakness to exploit. It does make me much harder to hit though, and it increases my speed.”

This time they need to figure out how to hold out until the bladesong ends and then silence me

…

30 Seconds. This might’ve bumped up the difficulty more than I thought it would. “Is this too much of a step up or are you all just tired from the previous fight?”

It’s a chorus of answers and seems to be roughly evenly split between tired and too hard. In that case I’ll just chalk it up to too tired, and write off half the guard as lazy. “Alright, no point in doing this anymore tonight then, I’m done with ‘em Captain. You got anything to add?”

She starts putting out some announcements and other nonsense I don’t have to worry about anymore, so I just turn and dip out. That was a good warmup I guess. “What do you think, Moonie? Did I make it too hard?”

“Yes, but it’s a trick question.” I tilt my head in confusion. “I don’t think it mattered what you did, any step up in difficulty will be too hard. The guards just aren’t designed to be able to focus and take down one extremely strong target. I think it’s impressive they were able to even win in the first place, but I think that’s pretty close they’re hard limit.”

I glance over at the winded and still exhausted guards. Half of them are still laying on the ground. “Really? Even with the clerics?”

“Yes, even with the clerics. The only reason they even won this time is because of the clerics. If they didn’t have the ability to stop you from casting spells they’d have a better chance finding a snowball in Tartarus.” That is true I suppose.

“I’ll ask Elytra what she thinks, if she wants to keep doing it I’ll tell them that it’s probably impossible but that if they just want the practice they have an hour to throw themselves at me. I should probably find a better way to say that before I tell them.”

Nightmare is giving me a deadpan stare. “Please do. What exactly do you need to train anyways? You can’t train Divinity the same way one would train mana. Your swordsmanship seems pretty close to its peak. You were able to use the True Bladesong. What do you have left to work on?”

“First of all my swordsmanship is dog water. Second of all, I can still train my stamina, strength, and speed. If I can improve those without reinforcing my body with Divinity then when I do use reinforcement it’ll be even faster.” I lay down on my back in the grass next to her and decide to just chill out for a little while. I’ve got all night after all.

“What exactly are your abilities now that you’ve added fire as one of your domains?” Rather than explain I just hold out my hand all of the fire burning on all of the braziers and torches around the training area fly up out of their fuel sources and start to converge in the air above my palm.

“Complete immunity to all fire and heat. I can cannonball into lava with the dragons now, so if they try to run into a magma pit thinking they can hide from me there I’ll get to show ‘em a little surprise.” I make the giant ball of fire above my hand break off and shape some of them into an alicorn and the others into a humanoid. Then I make them do a little dance together. “I also have complete control over all non-magical fire, including lava. I actually forced all of the volcanoes to erupt right before I left the dragon's territory. That was fun. There’s some other stuff but it’s not important, that’s the big one.”

“How did you even gain responsibility over that? I’ve never heard of any creature just deciding they want to be the alicorn of fire.”

“Well I’m not an alicorn now am I? Everytime my divine rank goes up I get to pick a new Salient Divine Ability, and one of those is “Extra Domain.” Theoretically I could just keep snatching up domains as I get more and more powerful.”

There’s a comfortable silence as we just lay in the grass next to each other. I have to train soon, but I figured I’d just lay here and be with her even if there’s nothing to discuss. I’m hoping it’ll get her to open up a bit about what she went through, but I know that probably isn’t gonna happen this soon.

“I thought you wanted to train?”

“You tryna get rid of me? I figured I’d just lay here for a while. I enjoy your presence even if we aren’t doing anything.” I roll over onto my belly and throw an arm over. My cheek brushing her soft fur before coming to a rest against her.

“I just told you that I appreciate you not treating me any differently and you go and treat me differently.” I glance up at her with a frown.

“That’s not fair. We used to sit silently next to each other in my office all the time. Just because we haven’t been able to do this recently cause of all the commotion doesn’t mean I didn’t wanna go back to doing it. You don’t have to say anything, alright. Just appreciate this for what it is….I’ll probably go train in an hour or so. If I wait too long I won’t be able to swing by and see Luna before we head back to Ponyville.”

As I predicted, the next hour passes in complete silence, but it’s not bad. I really did enjoy just laying against Moonie and relaxing for a while. I spent the next few hours doing practice sword swings and fighting an imaginary friend while talking to Elytra telepathically.

“It’s a little strange Sir. You’ve only been gone for a day and Princess Luna already seems uncharacteristically on edge. She can have her outbursts but she’s never been the type to, ahem, have a stick up her ass, as you call it.”

“Oh fuck. Elytra I gotta go. I might already be too late!” For some reason I imagine hanging up a phone even though that is not how it works at all. When we talk like this it’s just a form of prayer that goes until she stops or I filter her prayers out.

“......Sir…..did you forget to visit the Princess?”

“Sorry, I’m going through a tunnel!” Old human muscle memory dies hard.

“What?” I don’t respond. I might explain it to her one day.

Greater Teleport!

“Ignis.” I turn and see and see slightly annoyed alicorn. “Surely Ponyville was besieged by a monster, or a villain invaded with an ancient artifact right?”

“Now Luna…..let’s not get too hasty here.” I back up as she moves out from behind her desk and approaches me with a deceptively sweet smile.

“Surely something must’ve happened. You definitely have a good reason for only showing up five minutes before I lower the moon, right? That reason definitely doesn’t involve a purple unicorn mare, right?”

“You said you weren’t jealous! You knew it wasn’t like that!” She’s getting close! Moonie help!

“Opinions change when you’re sitting somewhere for over an hour waiting on somepony to show up, you know? The mind tends to wander and it’s almost always very creative and imaginative.”

“I was training and helping Elytra and lost track of time! Moonie was there the whole time! I’m sorry Lulu!”

“Oh you aren’t going to Lulu your way out of this one mister.” Her horn flashes and I wonder what’s happening. “Alright Nightmare has agreed to supervise the unicorn until your timely return.”

“Oh, good idea! She can watch her so we can still spend the right amount of time together! That’s why you get paid the Princess bucks. Why are you still smiling like that?”

“You owe me for making my mind wander, my loyal knight.” Her horn lights up again and I hear the door I’m leaning against click as it locks and hums with a magical seal.

Well…… I can think of worse punishments, all things considered I probably need this too.

Author's Note

Wowee, last time I took a year long break it was like 15 months! Good thing it was only 4 days this time :P.

No but really I uh.... I struggled hard with this chapter. I think choosing to sit on it and slowly write it instead of cranking it out like I did with the Summit was the right call, but I might also just uh.....cancel this mini-arc and derail it with the next main plot event. I had plans for this little mini arc with Twilight, but man it is just.....not translating to words very well. Taking a break was nice though....

So anyways I'll give this mini-arc one more shot with the next chapter, if I'm still not feeling it I'll have the one thing I needed to happen in this segment happen and then derails us back to Prevent Calamity.

(Also there is no NSFW chapter for what happens after the last line of the chapter. It's getting off-screened.)

Thanks for reading!